Into the Wild Review
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a book about the adventures and the tragic death of Chris McCandless. Chris McCandless is an outsider to say the least. Through interviews with Chris’s family, friends, and acquaintances, Jon Krakauer tries to piece together aspects of Chris’s life. The author also resites passages from Chris McCandless’ personal journal and different books that he treasured. I felt like as the book led to Chris’s eminent demise, the reader learned as much about the author as you did McCandless. It was very obvious that the author thought very highly of Chris.
Even though the story of Chris’s life isn’t really that long of a story at all, I mean the kid was only 24 when he died, it seemed like the book took forever to get to the actual story. Chris is really famous for surviving for 114 days in the Alaskan wilderness by himself with little provisions and then of course dying out there as well. The book doesn’t get to that part until basically the last chapter.
I did enjoy the thoroughness of Jon Krakauer’s writing because through the extensive background of Chris’s life you get a glimpse into what Chris most likely was going through and thinking about during his last few days. I felt at times that there were things that the author couldn’t possibly know about Chris and what he was thinking but that is where you find out more of the author’s point of view than Chris’s.
There is no doubt that Jon Krakauer sees himself in Chris McCandless in my opinion. Jon Krakauer is personally invested in the story because of his own personal experiences exploring Alaska and his his extensive research into Chris’s life. Sometimes I wish he would focus more on that than himself because I felt like throughout the whole book the author was trying to convince the reader that Chris wasn’t crazy in risking his life and going into the wild alone. When it comes down to it, it’s obvious that Chris wasn’t emotionally or mentally sound when he was on all of his adventures, at least that is the conclusion that I made.
Through Krakauer’s extensive background information you basically delve into literally every relationship that Chris ever had, even the human contact that lasted a couple hours. I understand that the author was trying to get everyone’s opinion on Chris but it became a little tedious at times. I felt like some of the stories just didn’t really matter, especially since Chris didn’t seem to care what anyone thought of him anyways. For example the author dedicated two chapters to his own travel stories and I had a hard time wondering why the information was relevant in the story about Chris McCandless; at least when the author was talking about people that actually met Chris you could get a glimpse into how Chris was but I felt like the author’s life was irrelevant to the story.
My all time favorite chapters were about Chris’s childhood though. Those chapters really helped the reader connect with Chris and I felt like I lost the opinion of the author for a second and that’s kind of what I wanted throughout the whole book. In reading these parts was when I actually started to feel connected to Chris and almost feel sorry for him. It’s when you realize how young and innocent he actually was. I also couldn’t help but make the personal connection between Chris’s relationship with his sheltie Buckley, since I grew up with a sheltie as well.
Overall I really enjoyed Chris’s story. I wish the book would’ve let you make your own conclusion about him instead of pushing certain viewpoints in your face but at least the author was genuine. The book also could’ve dropped a couple chapters in my opinion but the depth of the research is very impressive. I definitely would recommend this book to a friend and would give it five stars for Chris’s journey alone. This book would be perfect for anyone seeking adventure.